February 18, 2013

Josa Hanzlik (Biomedical Eng), Kevin Freedman (Chem Eng), Nicholas DiStasio (Biomedical Eng), and Claire (Martin) Witherel (Biomedical Eng‘12) received highly-competitive grants from the Whitaker International Program. Congratulations to all of them.

Josa Hanzlik is a 5th year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering and proposes to work with the researchers of The Orthopaedic Research Laboratory, Netherlands, to create mathematical models determining the implant or patient factors that increase the amount of bone ingrowth into porous implants. Beyond Mechanobiology, she also hopes to investigate which factors contribute to the low number of women in STEM fields both in the Netherlands and the US.

Kevin Freedman is a 3rd year doctoral student in Chemical and Biological Engineering, with research focusing on nanopores for biophysics applications. He is headed to the Imperial College in London, UK for his Whitaker Scholarship. At Drexel, he is in the research group of Prof MinJun Kim, and is funded by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Kevin was a Drexel undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering.

Nicholas DiStasiowill be graduating with a BS in Biomedical Engineering in 2013. With his Whitaker Fellowship he will be conducting research at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, France under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Picart. No stranger to international opportunities, Nick previously co-oped at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at University of Utrecht in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Claire (Martin) Witherel graduated with a BS/MS in Biomedical Engineering in 2012. She will be conducting research with Dr. Ardeshir Bayat at the University of Manchester, UK. While at Drexel, Claire spent a summer at the Shanghai Key Tissue Engineering Laboratory studying the effects of controlled release of growth factors in super-porous hydrogels for cartilage tissue engineering with an International Research and Education in Engineering (IREE) Scholarship.

***

The Whitaker International Program sends U.S. biomedical engineering (or bioengineering) students and graduates overseas to undertake a self-designed project that will enhance their careers within the field. Along with supporting grant projects in an academic setting, the Whitaker International Program encourages grantees to engage in policy work and propose projects in an industry setting.

For more information please visit the Whitaker website or contact Cindy Schaarschmidt, Asst. Director of the Drexel Fellowships Office.